Mohali set to get hi-tech bus shelters

Tired of waiting for a bus while standing in sweltering heat? Fret not, for the township is soon to get 40 new stainless steel bus queue shelters. The municipal corporation (MC) here has floated tenders for these bus queue shelters, which would be equipped with route maps, LED screens, and global positioning system (GPS)-based vehicle-tracking system to show the movement of the buses.

Tired of waiting for a bus while standing in sweltering heat? Fret not, for the township is soon to get 40 new stainless steel bus queue shelters.

The municipal corporation (MC) here has floated tenders for these bus queue shelters, which would be equipped with route maps, LED screens, and global positioning system (GPS)-based vehicle-tracking system to show the movement of the buses. It would also show the estimated time of arrival of the next bus.

Of these 40 bus queue shelters, the existing 20 will be demolished and reconstructed, while the remaining would be constructed from scratch. The 26 feet long and 7 feet wide shelters will have a seating capacity of six.

“Bus queue shelters are the need of the hour in SAS Nagar. Therefore, we have floated tenders. The selected contractor would maintain the shelters for seven years as per a Punjab government police,” said MC commissioner Uma Shankar Gupta.

As per the policy, the contractor would be allowed to put advertisements in 128 square feet area. The pre bid meeting will be held on November 20.

However, the MC officials have been careful while drafting the tender specifications. While listing the specifications for the tender, MC has taken care to omit all errors it made while giving out tenders for installing lifts for foot overbridges in the city. Such were the errors that project has been left in doldrums.

The biggest goof up was that MC while floating the tender had left the number of years for which the contract would be allotted as open.

The company that had qualified had stated that it would take the contract for 15 years, which as per policy could not have been done, thus the project is now hanging fire.

The chosen spots

Near MC office in Sector 68 Phase 11 near Laxmi Narayan Mandir Gurdwara Amb Sahib, Phase 8Two spots in Phase 8Two near Kumbra village intersectionTwo near Sohana Gurdwara Two near Army Institute of Law Two near Chawla hospital towards Chandigarh in Phase 3B1Near Verka roundabout Near Mango belt in Phase 4Near Rehri market in Phase 3B1Near taxi stand in Phase 5